Vacation elsewhere?

[eliza61]

No Problem.... actually .. I'd like to know..
what is a beach tag girl

In NJ you have to buy a "Beach Tag" to sit on the beach, (as you can tell this is a sore subject to me). Last year I think it was $5.00 per person per day. kids under 12 some times are free, so a family of 4 with teenagers has to shell out $20 bucks before you can go swimming. If you are staying for more than a day you can buy weekly tags. No discount for staying at the hotels either.

A beach tag girl/guy are the ones who sell them and they go up and down the beach making sure every one has their tags. You're suppose to pin them on your bathing suit.

 

[JimMIA]

I voted "looking for other options," but the issues OP cited are only part of the reason for that. We're actually looking for other options for several reasons, one of which has nothing to do with Disney Dining. (We're DVC owners, so the room rate questions don't apply to us.)

As far as Disney Dining, we're pretty much done with it for two reasons. One is DDP is no longer beneficial for our family, and the other is the menu standardization and decline in quality over the last few years make dining onsite much less attractive than before.

We have a DD5, so we'll probably do one character meal per trip, but we'll eat offsite for the rest. There are many good restaurants offsite. We'll still eat well, just in different places and probably less expensively.

The other reason we're looking for other options is that Disney is not the only interesting place on the planet. As DD gets a little older, we will do some national parks trips, visit NYC, Washington DC, and other great cities. We've already gone from 2-3 WDW trips to one per year, and in a few years, we'll probably only go once every other year.

 

[disneymomof2boyz]

We are yearly vacationers to the World, and for us Disney is truly magical, and we absolutely love it. We know how expensive Disney can be, and we have 2 boys, who are now paying for admission, and who eat....A LOT!! We would like to continue visiting the World at least once a year, usually in December. But as the boys get bigger I would also like to go somewhere educational/different in the summer. Like the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone Nat'l Park, and D.C. I think it's important for kids to vacation elsewhere, and appreciate the fantasy and magic of Disney. We would also like to buy into DVC in the next couple of years b/c room rates continue to increase. We had our Disneymoon in 2002, and payed $129.00 for the Carribean Beach during Peak season!! Needless to say that prices are much higher after six years, so I believe that DVC is worth it, especially b/c we want to come back every year.

 

[Lovin' Lorne]

the closest to my opinion would be "No, I LOVE DISNEY no matter what", but that doesn't sum it up accurately.
another choice is needed:
i know WDW is a business & don't find the changes out of line, but simply moves that the vast majority of vacation destinations already use (peak time surcharges, etc). [...]that said, i still find WDW a "good deal" & find it a great way to actually save money if we just want to get away & relax for a week instead of the many, much more costly options
so my choice would be:
no, i find the changes to be simply adjusting to industry standards, & still consider WDW a decent value

Took the words right out of my mouth. Hotels, resorts, tour operators and air fares world wide charge a premimum for peak rates, why should Disney be any different? Just because they're "Disney"? They are a business first. If and when it starts getting too expensive for us, we'll just stop going.

 

[MakiraMarlena]

We are boycotting the DDP this year. I had a difference of opinion about length of stay, all people on Reservation, etc. They did not seem to feel it was important and I did not get any signals from them they understood that I did not want to buy a DDP for my sister in law that stays for 2 nights out of a 7 night stay.

So we vote with our dollars.

They probably understood it, but they wouldn't permit it. For whatever reason, the rule is that every person on the reservation must purchase the DDP if the party wants it, and they must purchase it for the length of the stay.

Maybe that's a dumb rule - whether one thinks so or not depends on what they wanted to do with the DDP in the first place. But apparently it would have been too difficult to keep track of who had the dining plan for which days if you had different persons coming and going during the stay.